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Your Humble Ruler, Rajah Cheech Beldone, King of the Gypsies.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Are you an Indian or an Outdian???

(Thanks for your kind words, Ms. Bobcat, actually, I've never met a Taiwan cop who wasn't a sweetheart, unlike home, where I could expect to get pulled over and my vehicle searched once every couple of months, based simply on the way I looked and/or dressed, with even the smallest complaint earning one a good drubbing and a night in the tank)



So they say that after 35, men stop reading fiction.
Well, I certainly fit that profile.
With the exception of once or twice a year when I'll get in the mood to reread an old novel from years before, I pretty much stick to history and biography.
But I ran across this one at the bookstore a couple weeks ago, and it just looked interesting.




Part of what attracted me was the author's story:
He's, apparently "a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who escaped from Pentridge Prison and fled to India where he lived for 10 years."
I just started it, so I'll let you know. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable experience, not like every new novel I've tried in the last 15 years where I get to the end and it's like "Huh? What just happened??"

Oh yeah, you might think, reading the guy's story, that he might be kind of a badass.
But the reverse seems to be the case.
Yeah, no kidding.
About the only thing I can think of is his startling resemblance to a certain A-hole Engrish teacher we all know, you know, the one who looks like Rowan Atkinson with a fuckin ponytail.

Hardly a recommendation, badass-wise.

Oh yeah, the poster at the top, it's from a Bollywood quasi-version of Memento, which sounds pretty fuckin cool, I'll definitely be tracking it down for a watch.

3 comments:

  1. I got that Shantaram book in my drawer here at work. I made it to page 35 and gave up 4 months ago. If you get significantly farther than that and like the book, please let me know.

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  2. Rowan Atkinson with a fuckin ponytail... Ouch!

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  3. Hmm, you better not be being mean about THAT ponytail English teacher cos ya ammn't too big I'll not take the back of me hand off yer, fellamelad.

    Dunno. Those 'prison escape / prison in Asia books' are a bit shite, usually. Some genius relates how he got caught buying heroin in Bangkok (er, you're white ... did you think you would just blend in?) and prison was shit. All those fun adventures in Ayyyzhaaarr just emphasis the differences of the exotic east and how they were transthingyfied by it all. But then again, who wants to hear a story such as 'Yep, went to Asia, did a few dodgy things, never got busted, had fun, then went somewhere else for a while'?

    I will one day write my memoir as my time as the bandit queen of HuLin Jie. 'All fired up on dou jiang, the HuLin Jie bandit queen slashed with her crude, homestyled machete, cutting through the swathes of cabbage vendors and tramps outside the OK Happy Mart. Blue flipflops floated away on the ruby red rivers of blood as the hen bai hen pang de bandit queen held her prize aloft. The head of the pineapple seller was hers!

    ReplyDelete

Hey, thanks for the fuckin feedback.
Readers' opinions and feelings are fucking important to me.
No, I'm fucking serious.
Really.